DWG to 3D model

Hi everybody,

My name is Lucas, I am a trained ship mechanic from Germany.
I was working on harbour and offshore tugs and research vessels.
At the moment my approach to ships is more on a hobby base.
I want to build some ship models from existing plans/ files to 3d-print them later on.

In the meantime I can work quite ok with Fusion 360 for 3d designing, but it is not really helpful for hull designing.
I have a set of plans as dwg files and I am looking for a software which uses the existing dwgs and is able to create a 3d model.
For example:
Insert the frames from the dwg frame plan, position them and loft a surface from frame to frame.

I tried it with Delftship (free version), Autocad, Inventor etc.
I had a look for Rhino in combination with Orca, but just for hobby use, the cost is a bit too high for me.
It is the same with Maxsurf..

If you have any tips for me, I would be very happy!

Thank you for your help in advance!

Lucas

 

Welcome to the forum.
One of my programs does precisely that, starting from a 2D body lines plan in AutoCAD, it creates a 3D model of the hull, solid model, or surfaces. If you are interested, send me a pm and I will complete the information.

 

Positon your frames, create lofted surface through them. If needed edit surface where ship geometry is complex ( bow, stern, around openings etc ). Once you have desired surface you can set shell thickness ( thicken command ) and export 3D model into a suitable format ( .step, .stl, .. ) , which can be opened in your 3D printer software.
From my experience a hard part of the game is not to get good quality 3D model. The hard part is to get a good result after printing. Good luck!

PS - We talk about plastic 3d printer, right?

 

In most cases this procedure does not give good results, especially in the fore and aft areas. It is generally preferable to use water lines. But everyone can feel more comfortable with one procedure or another. You also have to take into account that you edit surfaces, apply Boolean algebra between them, etc. can make the model very complicated and difficult for the printer to digest.

 

Agree, but according to the scale of the printing model compared to the real model in CAD program a lot of these could be ignored (? depending on requirements of projects). No sense to spend, let say 2 hours to fix small deviation in the surface leading to bad local fairing if it's not visible after printing. If the model is used for hydrodynamic tests its another story...
The author needs to state project requirements for a more clear approach to the final printing, even if it's a hobby.

 

It is not a matter of wasting time in unnecessary perfectionism, it is, as I say, that, with the same effort, in boats with complicated ends, better results are obtained through the water lines. But that's my experience, it's not the absolute truth.

Apparently @cmdjoesi has already tried the method with the frames.

 

Hi guys!
Thank you for your quick replies first.
Yes, I need to specify my project a bit more: The plan is to 3d print (plastic) the hull and maybe the superstructure of an AHTS (original lenghts 92m) in scale 1/50, so the hull will be 1,84m, which is relatively long. It will be printed in sections and reinforced with Epoxy.
As TANSL said, I tried the method with lofting from frame to frame, results were not as I wished.
Of course it is just for hobby use, not for hydrodynamic tests. Still, I want to be as close to the original as possible.
And I have most of the files, it is just not clear to me how to use them in the easiest way to get the result I want.
I also tried the waterline method in Fusion 360. The problem with this one is, that you get a hull with a edge every new layer.

Thanks

Lucas

 

Regarding your work with water lines, you may have tried to create a surface between every two curves. If you try to create a single surface using all lines at the same time (marking them in the proper order), the resulting surface will not have as many edges. In any case, obtaining a smooth surface requires a work of fairing the shapes that can be very laborious.